Too much going on to write about! First of all, we bought a new house in what I call the Saratoga Slums. For those of you who don't live around here, it's a joke name, because Saratoga is a ritzy old-money town with giant estates going up into the mountains, but the part of Saratoga that our house is in is on the border of San Jose and Campbell (where we live now) and is a nice middle-class neighborhood, but nothing too outrageously fancy. Very good schools though, which I'm obviously happy about. The house is not huge, but it's pretty inside with nice little details like crown molding and top-quality hardwood floors and maple cabinets and skylights and built-in speakers.

The kitchen is a two-butt kitchen, but it opens up right into the main room, which is a living room/dining room/family room all combined. I love that. I hate being in the kitchen cut off from everyone else, so now I never have to deal with that anymore. People can sit at the counter or even at the dining table and still visit with me and drink a glass of wine with me while I cook. Fantastic.

It's on a 10,000 square foot lot, which is big for this area. There's a big deck, a bocce ball court (!), a hot tub and fruit trees, and we still have a lawn big enough to play soccer or badminton. Our front yard is big too. That was key for me as well. Why buy a house if there's no land that comes with it? We have some giant mature trees that will be nice and cool and shady for sitting outside in summertime.

So now we're selling our townhouse. Actually, since I started writing this, we *did* sell our house...for a great price and in less than a week. Hooray! Apparently there is no real estate supply right now, no one is selling. We timed this just right without even trying. Most excellent.

Julian is such a cute boy. He is a speed-crawler now. He jets around the house examining every little nook and cranny. He loves the stereo (which is down at his level, and also loves to turn our computers on and off. Any mechanical thing that is not a toy is fascinating to him. He loves his books and knows how to turn all the pages. He loves to be sung to. He loves to nurse. He loves to ride in his backpack and see everything that I'm doing up at grown-up level. He loves to have his belly kissed and be swung upside down by his feet. He loves blueberries mixed with a little yogurt. He loves his bath. He loves to cuddle in the morning. He loves to put his bare feet on my stomach. He loves to wrestle with his daddy and get kissed. He loves to chase Bugs and steal his bone, then chew on it. He loves it when Bugs squeaks his toys. He loves it when he sneezes, then you pretend to sneeze right afterwards. He loves other babies and kids, or even looking at pictures of babies/kids. He loves to pull himself up on just about anything and then smack his palm on top of that object like he has just conquered it!

He hates to wake up and find himself alone in the dark. He hates his car seat at night when it's dark in the car. He hates having his fingernails clipped. He hates having his clothes and diaper changed if it takes too long. If I sing the ABC song while I change his clothes/diaper, then he tolerates it.